Pakistan imposes 10 pct duty on Chinese petroleum

Pakistan announced the step on Friday after  a massive 673pc surge in duty-free imports to Rs250 billion this year with a revenue loss of Rs25bn under the garb of the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA).

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet which also approved almost Rs147bn worth of supplementary grants including Rs81bn additional funds to defense services for expenditure before June 30, reports Dawn News.

The meeting, presided over by Finance Minister Miftah Ismail, also approved a summary for the grant of an unspecified amount of honorarium to officers and staff of the ministry of finance and revenue board, the newspaper reported.

Pakistan took the decision a day after  the government increased petroleum prices to reduce the budgetary burden.

Informed sources told Dawn News the ECC was told that due to the waiver of customs duty under CPFTA, some of the oil marketing companies (OMCs), particularly a multinational, had increased their imports of petrol from China by availing the benefit of the CPFTA.

The government could not do anything against OMCs given such sourcing from China was legal under CPFTA even though the importers availing the FTA exemption pay zero customs duty while others pay customs duty at the rate of 10pc.